Communications Minister Anika Wells warns telco bosses there are ‘no excuses’ for future triple-o outages

Communications Minister Anika Wells came under attack in a fiery Federal Parliament today as she refused to say whether she had contacted the families of three people who died during the Optus triple-0 outage last month.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley asked the minister during Question Time on Tuesday whether Ms Wells had called them to “apologise for the Albanese Labor Government’s inaction”.

“Have I spoken with the families?” Ms Wells asked.

“I have spoken with Optus, the company who has failed Australians and these families here.”

The Opposition targeted Ms Wells at every opportunity and accused her of hiding behind inexperience.

“147 days ago the minister was sworn into her portfolio and yet she still self-identifies as a new minister. Being new is no excuse. Australians dialling triple-0 in an emergency cannot wait for you to learn,” Ms Ley said.

“The minister isn’t across her brief and by her own admission, people have died.”

Coalition MPs repeatedly asked Ms Wells to apologise to the people impacted by the triple-0 outage, particularly the families of the two in WA and one in SA who died.

She did not.

The defensive exchange from the minister came after she told Australia’s telecommunications bosses they had “no excuses for triple-0 outages” as authorities brace for increased demand on the emergency network during the approaching bushfire season.

Ms Wells delivered the blunt warning to the bosses of Australia’s three major telcos at a meeting in Canberra, then introduced new legislation to underpin the powers of a triple-0 guardian.

“Telco providers know that under the law they must provide reliable access to triple-0 – that is their legal obligation,” she told Parliament.

“That’s why this morning I met with the CEOs of Optus, Telstra and TPG-Vodafone ahead of the approach of the natural disaster season.

“There are no excuses, and I made that crystal clear today.”

Tuesday’s meeting came as the Government defended its handling of two recent Optus outages, including a 13-hour-long disruption on September 18 that blocked hundreds of triple-0 calls and has been linked to three deaths.

her most passionate response came while speaking about the families who had campaigned for the under-16s social media ban who joined her in New York last month to speak about that policy.

“Frankly, I am disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition seeks to let Optus off the hook and try to say that other people should apologise for the failures of a private company in Optus,” Ms Wells said at one point.

“This outage and the many failings of Optus are the fault of Optus alone, and I think the political actions, the politicising of a catastrophe here is letting Optus off the hook, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

The Opposition questioned how the minister could make such an assertion without having received the results of communications watchdog ACMA’s review.

Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain and the National Emergency Management Agency joined Ms Wells for the meeting with the telco bosses on Tuesday morning.

They agreed to reconvene for a simulation drill in a couple of weeks to stress-test the system, especially examining scenarios for regional areas.

The industry was committed to working closely with the Government, emergency services, regulators and other partners to deliver high standards, the three CEOs said in a joint statement.

“Australians need to be able to trust that calls to Triple-0 will work when it matters most, and we take that responsibility seriously,” said Telstra’s Vicki Brady, Optus, Stephen Rue and TPG-Vodafone’s Inaki Berroeta.

“While no network is infallible and outages can occur due to factors such as severe weather, power loss, or technical faults, our focus is on minimising the risk of disruption and responding swiftly when issues arise.”

They said their companies were taking action to protect the integrity of the Triple-0 system.

Under the new laws, the telcos will be forced to provide real-time updates of Triple-0 outages from next month in response to the most recent Optus failures that have been linked to three deaths.

It’s not yet clear whether the Coalition will back the bill despite it calling for swift action.

Shadow communications minister Melissa McIntosh said the Opposition had only been given access to the draft legislation last night and was seeking its own meetings with telco bosses.

“It seems like the Government’s rushing this through as a bit of a political PR exercise, as opposed to solving the issues that are going to result in people being able to call our most important Triple-0 network,” she told reporters.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the tragedy of the Optus outage had highlighted what regional and rural Australians went through every day.

“Many of our communities are one-tower towns, and those (mobile phone) towers, when they go down because they haven’t been properly maintained by particularly Telstra, then we have no Triple-0,” he told The West.

He called on the Government to extend the universal service obligation from payphones and landlines to cover mobile phone towers as well to make sure they were kept operational.

“We started with about 64,000 pay phones, we’re down to about 14,000 now, and most people using them are drug dealers, and there’s not that many land lines left,” he said.

The Greens have called for Ms Wells to review Optus’ licence and conditions.